A while ago — let’s not say how long — I met up with Emma from JEMS to have a chat and so I could return a memory locket of hers I’d previously photographed (and which she got published on a magazine!) and take some photos of her beautiful, quirky unique jewelry. (You really can’t take the American out of my English; I’m sorry. I tried. It felt wrong.) We had a little walk around Belsize Park — she was in London from Leeds, for an event — and picked a spot to get some photos.

I photographed the pieces she was carrying on her, and took a few more portrait-like shots as well. I’m sharing them with you all here on the blog today. I hope you love her work as much as I do. And if you’re interested in hiring a photographer, go here or here!

As I mentioned a while back, my Etsy Picks post are going to be link-ups from now on — that means you’re welcome to submit your own posts featuring Etsy shops and products, or other handmade designers, to the InLinkz widget below. I’m thinking about having themes every now and again; let me know how you feel about that. And feel free to share the link-ups with anyone you know who does Etsy posts, or sells on Etsy, or would be interested in participating for any other reason!

1. Share your posts about Etsy! Wishlists, guides, interviews with shop owners, features — as long as it highlights an Etsy or handmade shop or product, it’s fair game. Please link to your post and not to your main blog. Links unrelated to Etsy or handmade crafts will be deleted.

2. Link back here from your post so everyone can join in and look at the awesome stuff everyone else has found.

3. You can link up any time from Saturday (the day the post goes up) to Friday.

4. Visit at least one other blog and leave a comment. This is the only rule that asks anything of you, and it’s a very small requirement, so please don’t just link-drop.

I’ve been selling on Etsy for some time now — two years this month with my photography shop, a little over a year with the branding and design one. Before I started this blog, I was really active in the Etsy community, the teams and forums. That fell by the wayside over time for various reasons, but that time getting to know the site and the amazing creative people that sell on it instilled in me a love for carefully, lovingly handcrafted quality, and a desire to support fellow small business owners who are doing their best to live off what they love.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to bring back an old feature on this blog, Friday Loves – which later turned into Pretty Things, and which is now going to be called Etsy Picks, except for the times I include things from other platforms. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. The subcategory will still be Pretty Things, because it’s a good umbrella term for all of it.

For my very first shopping guide — I hesitate to call it a Christmas gift guide, at this point, though I’m sure you can still get some shopping in for domestic orders! — I decided to focus on home and living. Specifically, comfort and warmth. The word housewarming is what it is for a reason… I’m sure.

Music can make such a difference in someone’s life. As someone who forgets to listen to music for long periods of time and then regrets it when she does it again and realizes how helpful it is, I know this well. At the moment, the only ways I can listen to music are my laptop’s built-in speakers, and the headset of my phone, which won’t stick in my ears no matter how hard I try. So a pair of warm, comfy headphones — and a portable speaker for when I’m home — would be a truly welcome addition to my life. These two sets from Ted Baker are gorgeous on top of useful, too.

I have to admit I’ve never got the appeal of flowers, but I know they brighten a lot of people’s days, and that’s no small feat. The above gift set from Floric — from whom I received a stunning white rose bouquet last month — combines the temporary pleasure of flowers with a little bit of pragmatism in their bath box.

Sometimes even the best heating won’t keep you warm in winter, and for that, I recommend Heat Holders. I can vouch for the effectiveness of their products; I received two pairs of socks and wear them on a regular basis. They’re lovely socks lined with fleece, and they’re so thick the first time I put them on I worried I wouldn’t be able to squeeze my feet into my sneakers. Luckily, the fabric flattens under pressure, and just leaves the warmth.

There’s nothing more day-throwing than sleeping uncomfortably. Sleep and showers are my constant, the one thing I need every day to be a halfway functional human being the next day. I think most people who’ve recently moved can use these things — an extra set of towels and an extra set of bedding. (For some, it may not be an extra one. I moved here without bedding and with only one hair towel; I couldn’t fit anything else in my suitcases.) These sets from John Lewis are relatively affordable, and would make a great group present, too, as they’re, well, sets.

Pia Jewellery is a company that carries a collection of jewellery — of course — as well as a selection of accessories, clothing and gifts. I received an umbrella and a pair of black gloves that I can’t say enough good things about — and which you’ll see on the blog sooner rather than later. For this shopping guide, however, I chose to focus on one of their ‘extras’ — a beautiful three-drawer jewellery box. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s super picky about how they store their jewelry, and ends up hating every arrangement. I’ve long wanted a nice, tiered box, and this one looks like a fantastic fit.

If you’ve got the budget, and your giftee is cool with it (or your giftee is yourself), you can go a little further and help with the furniture. A house needs places to sit, to curl up with your legs under your butt while you do things on your laptop or read, and the armchair from Made.com is the type of armchair I dream of. If you’ve already got one, or a nice couch, the perfect addition for extra comfort would be a footstool, and I singled out the Chloe footstool from Cookes Furniture for the puffy look and the neutral tones.

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As always, my choices are informed by what I need and a certain sense of pragmatism. I also made an effort to make them all go together, for the sake of the graphic, though many of the items featured are also available in other colors and even fabrics. I had a lot of fun putting this together, so you can expect more guides like this in the future.

Are you giving any gifts for the home this season? What are you going with, if so?

Happy Tuesday! Today I am showcasing a handmade jewelry shop on Etsy that I’ve loved since I found it a few months back. It’s called Crafted Locally, and it carries the work of the lovely Debora L. Griffin, as well as select pieces made by local artists from her community.

Debora specializes in wirework and metalwork, and her wide array of earrings is breathtaking. Just have a look at her categories! In the above graphic and the gift card below, I singled out some of my absolute favorite pieces from her shop:

Don’t you just love them and want them real bad? Because I do. I also want some of her bead work earrings, which are super nice too — but the wirework is just ridiculously beautiful! You’ve got lots to choose from — and you’ll have to if you win the $30 credit to her store Debora is giving away to one of my readers!

I’m seriously so excited to be hosting my very first someone-else’s-stuff giveaway on my blog, and I’m so happy I get to team up with Debora for it. All you have to do is complete the super easy steps on the Rafflecopter below! If you win, you will be contacted by email. The giveaway is open worldwide and will run for two weeks.

So the thing about Valentine’s Day is that everyone has feelings about it. There’s a lot of hatred for it, and a lot of love for it, and I pretty much understand neither. It’s obviously a made-up holiday and big retail monsters have a field day with it. Just think, people have a solid reason slash excuse to buy nice things for the person they love! What a nightmare, right? I can’t imagine anything worse.

Look, I’m sure there are legit reasons to hate the holiday, but a lot of them sound like a dudebro came up with them to justify being an asshole, which in turn spreads this notion that women liking Valentine’s Day will resent men for not catering to their apparently unreasonable needs, and it’s all just a lot of unnecessary bullshit. If you’re in a relationship, sit down with the person you’re with. Decide how you’re going to do Valentine’s Day. Maybe you like it but you can’t afford to spend a lot of money; maybe you can compromise to get chocolates the day after Valentine’s Day — after all, they taste the same on February 14 than the next day — or go out for dinner on a day you can get a reservation for only half a kidney instead of a whole one. Maybe you don’t like celebrating your love the same day as everybody else. Maybe you’re allergic to chocolate. Maybe you really don’t see the point of gifting live flowers. Maybe you’re allergic to flowers.

Maybe you actually know each other and can get each other personalized gifts like you would for any other occasion like Christmas or birthdays. Me, I like cats. You can get me any of the above gifts and I’ll be pretty happy. My cat will also be happy if you get me the bouquet so I can use the stems as kitty toys. We’re all crazy here.

My point is, if you’re in a relationship with someone, and mind you, I’ve never been so I’m talking out of my common sense here, you should be comfortable enough letting them know if a holiday makes you break out in hives or if you’ll be really angry if it’s not observed by your significant other or if there’s a particular kind of celebration that brings up past trauma or if there’s someone in your past you closely associate with the holiday and would rather not think about or whatever. If the person you’re with shames you for whatever your opinion of Valentine’s Day is, hate to break it to you, but you’re dating an asshole. Break that shit off immediately. Let’s be real, if you can’t talk about your feelings on Valentine’s Day freely to your partner, you might be:

a) fully deserving of your space not to go in depth into a past traumatic event until you’re comfortable sharing it,

b) not in a healthy relationship,

or

c) both of the above.

If you’re single, you can exchange gifts with a friend, or you can treat yourself to something, or you can ignore the holiday altogether. I mean, it’s a made-up holiday that’s basically geared towards making people feel loved by having money spent on them. You love yourself, right? I love myself. I’d get me gifts. I’m not sure why I should feel bad about not being in a relationship, other than because society probably tried really hard to make me think my self-esteem was tied to whether other people— well, mostly men, wanted me. It went in one ear and right out the other, which I know is not the case for most people. It’s the borderline Asperger’s, probably. (I’m not kidding. I’m not diagnosed, but if I don’t have AS then I’m really damn close.)

Anyway. Whether you have a significant other or not, or you’re asexual or arromantic or not, or you’d rather take a page from Leslie Knope and do Galentine’s, or you want to do both Valentine’s and Galentine’s, or you’re in too new a relationship to know whether you should do Valentine’s (talk about it), or you’re in several relationships and can’t figure out the logistics (talk about it), or you’re planning to stay in and watch romantic comedies and eat ice cream, or you’re planning to stay in and play videogames and eat junk food, or a combination of any of the above things,

This week, I’m posting my handmade finds a little early and renaming them, well, Handmade Finds, so I’m not restricted to posting them on Friday. Turns out there’s a lot of photography link-ups on Friday, did y’all know? and I’m co-hosting one of them this week! So without further ado, here’s a board inspired by sheer nostalgia.

I hope you like these, and if you like me (or my work!), head on over to Angie’s blog today! I am giving away a $75 gift certificate to my graphic design shop on My So-Called Chaos today. With $75 to my shop, you could get a custom blog header or a media kit design, to mention just two options! It’s open worldwide, you’ve got plenty of ways to enter (like following this here blog!) and it’s open until January 6. Don’t miss out!